She Can See Them
by LovelyFarron
Summary: They are the impossible future, part of a time and place that only exists within her heart. They can never be, can never exist beyond her dreams and visions and hallucinations. Zutara oneshot.


A/N: This has actually been in the works for a while. I decide to finish it up in honor of Valentine's Day :)

Cartoon: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Pairing: Zuko/Katara

Rating: K+

Genre: Romance, Angst

She Can See Them

Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. Sometimes she can hear their high-pitched shrieks of laughter, and sometimes all she hears is the howling wind. Sometimes she can see their eyes, the sparkling crystal blue and molten amber yellow, and sometimes all she sees is the drab terrain in front of her. Sometimes she can see the thick, unruly raven-black hair blowing in the wind and sometimes all she can see is the quiet expanse in front of her. Sometimes she can feel their smooth skin that is just a few shades lighter than hers against her and sometimes all she can feel is the hard stone path beneath her feet and the tongue of the cold wind lapping at her exposed flesh.

She never use to see these things, these visions, these phantoms, until she met _him_. She never used to question what she saw, wonder whether she was slipping and going crazy until her crystal clear blue eyes stared into his beautiful tormented yellow. She never used to feel such emotions, never used to worry about her heart beating itself clear out of her chest, never used to think twice about her own mental sanity, but now, now…she does.

He does things to her, makes her feel things, things deep inside her very being, her _soul_, that she has never felt before. She knows that these things must be wrong, that what she feels cannot be right and cannot be sanctioned by the gods, but she cannot help it.

She doesn't know what she feels for him most of the time, it is so intense and all-consuming that when it raises its head she is unable to control it and it blazes and burns and destroys all sense of logic that she has. She can't understand it, can't wrap her mind around the emotions and desires rolling around inside her like some tempest. And it terrifies her, being unable to control it.

Sometimes she thinks it's love, sometimes she thinks it's hate, and sometimes she thinks it's both. In all honesty, if it really is love she wouldn't know it. She's never been in love before, never had someone come into her life that makes her feel that special way that people in love must feel. She's felt hate before though and can identify that emotion very clearly. She won't lie to herself, she does hate him at times. She's looked him in the eyes and wanted to snuff out his flame, extinguish his very existence and wipe his miserable excuse for a life off the face of the planet. The only problem is that when she feels this hate, this intense and burning hatred, that it is accompanied with this other emotion that she cannot identify, the one that she wonders is love. But love isn't supposed to make one question everything, make one lose their mind and take away their breath while stabbing them in the chest with a thousand knives…or is it?

She's felt familial love; she's experienced the love of a brother, a mother, a father. She's had the love of friends, of comrades, and she's felt the occasional flutter of her heart and the butterflies in her stomach that indicate a crush. Along with those feelings she's also experienced jealousy, curiosity, hurt, sadness, joy, happiness, and all the other emotions that cannot be named or identified. But she hasn't experienced Eros, that romantic love.

She's never really thought about it all that much, not until now that is. She's never had a reason to. Growing up she was too concerned with staying alive, keeping her brother from accidentally killing himself, and with getting over her mother's death. The only emotions within her were regret, familial love, and hate. The only boy in the village was her brother anyway, so it wasn't like she had guys pursing her.

But now, now that she's embarked upon the adventure of a lifetime—_her_ lifetime—she's finding that she has to deal with the attentions of men and the troubles that it brings. Actually, they really aren't all that troublesome, annoying maybe, but none upset her and make her insides twist into uncomfortable knots like _he_ does. None of them make her lose her head, make her want to run off a cliff and just end it because she can't understand what is happening to her, what is boiling and festering beneath her skin.

He messes with her, he really does. He screws with her heart and mind, makes her want to believe the words that fall from his pale, thin lips when she knows that she can't. He's her opposite in every way, in every manner, in every fiber of his being. They're the sun and moon, fire and water, yin and yang. She doesn't know what she should feel for him; her feelings are in a constant state of flux when he is around and she can never pinpoint at one time exactly what it is she feels. And it drives her mad because she should know, she should be able to control herself, should be able to look at him without having her words get stuck in her throat and come spilling out as poison when she is able to finally speak.

He is frustrating, infuriating, confusing, complex. She has seen so many sides of him that she isn't sure what to think of him. One minute he's the cruelest of villains and the next he's a weeping angel, his wings ripped out from between his shoulder blades and the blood dripping down his thin back, tainting the ground with brilliant crimson beneath his feet. At times she sees the devil wings sprout out from where his angel wings had once been and at other times she sees him ripping out the veiny, purple appendages, allowing his soft downy feathers to make a valiant effort at returning. It is a constant struggle for him, she sees that, and it is because of this that she doesn't know if she can trust him or despise him.

Of course, she is just as complex as he is and he probably has just as much difficulty reading her as she does him. She can be vengeful, spiteful, commanding and cold one second and then maternal and warm the next. She pushes people away and desperately clings to them at the same time, hiding her hurt and insecurities behind a smiling and sometimes stern face. She has shown him kindness and then rejected him, saying she'll forgive him and then going back on her word. It must drive him mad because she knows that it drives herself mad because she can't understand why she acts this way.

Perhaps even more maddening is the fact that in their differences and complexities, there is one way in which they are the same, one sad, tragic way. They are both broken. They have both lost something dear to them; both have had the love of their mother torn away from them and had a hole ripped through their very hearts. They both desire revenge and have both felt the hatred that makes the best of men turn to the wickedest of devices. They want to crush those that have hurt them, want to watch their worlds burn and be rent asunder.

Regardless of their many differences and one similarity however, that does not change the fact that he makes her filled with hate and this undefinable emotion. She's heard before that it is possible to love someone so much that you hate them; she's heard tales of lovers that have had their love literally consume them and twist them into something ugly and horrid, something that is not love but something that stemmed from it. She is afraid that that is what she feels, and that is why when she sees him, when she sees those phantom children dancing on the breeze, she wants to curl up and cling to the sweet little boy that she found in the iceberg. She wants to hide away from the fire burning inside her, wants to drown it in water and blow it out with strong gales.

She's a brave girl—no, woman—that doesn't run from things, but for once in her life she thinks she is going to have to. She's strong, but not strong enough to survive whatever it is that is eating away at her very being from the inside out. She isn't ready to risk it all and put her heart so far out on a limb, a limb as burnt and scarred as his beautiful face. She's afraid that she'll fall and that when she falls that there will be no one there to catch her, or rather, that she won't _want_ to be caught and will be content to sink down into her grave. And it terrifies her.

She can't talk to anyone about it, not her brother, not the two girls that she considers to be her sisters, not the one who loves her, and certainly not _him_. Her brother wouldn't understand, or maybe he would, but he would certainly not approve; he knows what it's like to want something, to desire, to _love_, what you can't have. He's been through it, lived it, and _suffered_ for it. He lost the very thing that he chased after, saw her die, felt her last breath leave her while she rested in his arms. She knows that he would encourage her to follow her heart and if _he_ is what she feels she must take, then to go for it, no matter the cost. But at the same time, he also would be very angry that it was _him_ to begin with, for he is of the Fire Nation and they are the ones responsible for all the hurt and pain that he, that she, that their family, has suffered. And of course, she knows that is she pursues this forbidden fruit that there will only be more suffering ahead for her and her brother, for the boy she found in the iceberg, for her sisters-in-bond, for _him_.

So knows that if she is to chase after him, that if she catches up to him and takes his hand in hers and walks beside him, that her path will be full of pain, passion, tragedy, and happiness. She knows that if she chooses to stay with him that she will become a Princess of an entire nation, a nation full of people that she use to hate because of what their King, what _his father_, did. Could she handle that? Could she rule over the very people that she use to despise, could they accept her, a Waterbender, born in the Southern Water Tribe, as their Lord's consort?

There is also the many "what-ifs" that plague her mind, that "what-ifs" of lives, of different paths, that she could take. Each one is full of twists and turns, of unexpected potholes and dead ends. She is positive, however, that none of them could ever possibly lead her to the ruin that is sure to befall her should she choose to be with _him_.

Her passion, his passion (should he feel the way she does, whatever it is that she feels) would consume them in the end, she knows this. Their paradise, their Eden, would be destroyed and the Nations of the world would suffer. She's not sure how it would happen, but she knows that it would. The twin fires burning in their bosoms are dangerous, that she knows, and to fan the flames of hatred and love—if that is what it is—would be foolish.

Who are they to come across their fated lover anyway? There are many other people out in the world more concerned, more deserving with find that one that they can share their soul with. There are others that need to find that kindred spirit, that one person that is their opposite yet their perfect match at the same time. She's a young woman, not fully grown, and she hasn't done anything particularly spectacular or noteworthy in her life so why would the gods deem her (and him) worthy of finding that one in a billion person? It makes her feel guilty, filthy, and worthless. She feels selfish and horrible; someone else should be gifted with such emotions, such passion, someone far more able to cope with it than she, someone who actually knows _what to do_. But, nevertheless, she has these emotions, this passion, and they are undying and growing so strong that she fears that she may die from the intensity.

The laws and rules of the time would certainly not allow her and him to easily come together, despite their feelings for each other. She is a commoner in the eyes of the Fire Nation, she is the enemy that they fought against. To her people, he is the enemy and the son of a tyrant. Their customs and practices are so different that they cannot possibly coincide, cannot possibly exist peacefully. To be together would be difficult and taxing; the people that she helped rule would forever resent her and her own people would regard her as a traitor to some degree (even though the war is over). His people would question his sanity and her people would treat him with coldness. There is really no way for them to win, no way for them to get around the facts that life and circumstance have thrust upon them.

But regardless of everything, regardless of right and wrong, of reality, of consequences, of the future, of the path she knows she must take, of the passion burning like a roaring inferno within her soul, of the guilt she feels, of the laws and rules that govern their very existence…she can see them. She can see them all; see him, see herself, and see the children that can never, ever be. She can see them living happily in some faraway dream, can see them growing and learning and training and _living_.

They are the impossible future, part of a time and place that only exists within her heart. They can never be, can never exist beyond her dreams and visions and hallucinations.

She wonders if he can see him them too; she wonders if he sometimes has to blink twice and suck in deep breaths to calm his frantically beating heart and upset stomach. She wonders if he can feel the love they have for them, their parents. She wonders if he can see himself playing with them in the beautiful garden of their home, she wonders if he can see himself teaching them, instructing them, laughing with them, crying with them. Or does he see something entirely different; does he see her with them? Does he see through his own eyes events that are fictional just as she sees them taking place through her own eyes?

In the end she supposes that it doesn't really matter though, that nothing really does because they cannot be, not now, not ever. They have the potential to do great things together but they also have the potential to do so much wrong. In the grand scheme of things, safer is better and smarter.

Still…it does not change the fact that every time she sees him she can see them.


End file.
